Today’s Scripture Reading (August 3,
2016): 1 Kings 8
I have a
habit of misplacing things. An acquaintance of mine has the same habit, except
that he always seems to think that people are stealing from him. I know better.
With me, it is me that is at fault. (I really suspect it is the same with him.)
And even if people are stealing from me, it is only because I am being careless
with my things and letting them. When I was a teen and still living at home, a
mother and her child came over for a visit. (Obviously, not with me, but with
my mom). The child, who was less than three years old, walked off with some of
my money. I am sure that he had a video game that he wanted to buy (again,
sarcasm). And so he took my money. His mom later found it and forced him to
come back with the money and apologize for taking it. My thought at the time
was that this kid has no idea what he took and probably no idea why it was
wrong. If he had stolen a toy to play with, that might be one thing. My
grandkids kidnap toys from my house all the time to be brought back later, but
what is a three-year-old kid going to do
with some paper that he has no idea has any value whatsoever. The fault wasn’t
his, it was mine. He said sorry and I gave him a hug and said thank you, and
just hoped the event hadn’t scarred him for life. I am the one to blame. I am,
and always have been, careless with my stuff.
The author of 1 Kings informs us that when the Ark of the
Covenant was brought into the Temple, all that was in it was the two stone tablets
containing the Ten Commandments that God had given to Moses. And while that was
a pretty impressive thing to have in the Ark, apparently the Ark was also missing
some stuff. The Ark was supposed to contain the two stone tablets, a gold bowl
containing some manna from the desert, and the staff belonging to Aaron that
budded in the desert. The staff and the bowl of manna had disappeared. And we
don’t really know where.
But I have an idea. Israel was careless with the Ark and it
was in the possession of the Philistines for a period of time. The Philistines
didn’t know the story behind any of the items. So the rocks with strange
writing they left, the gold bowl with chips in it,
they took (and probably threw out the food thinking it was stale and
kept the gold of which they understood the value). The staff budded, well, that
was just a weird souvenir for someone’s kid.
But the end result was not that the Philistines stole the
stuff, but that Israel was careless and had lost what had been given to them by
God.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings
9
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